The fractured opposition to the TPP from within Labour has caused a lot of grief within and laughter without. Little has missed an opportunity to present himself as the fearless leader who has no difficulty understanding right from wrong and sorting out dissent within the ranks.

The ability to access medical treatment for trans people on the inside, or the outside is fraught with problems. For many, the only way to gain access is through the sexual health clinics of major hospitals. Even then, many are turned away and are told to access the minimum three month counselling privately, at their own expense.

Nearly every day in Whangarei a lawyer is asked by a black-eyed prisoner to seek a short adjournment so that he’ll stay in the North’s Ngawha Prison rather than being shipped back to Serco where they will be beaten with impunity rather than afforded protection owed to people so vulnerable to systemic abuse.

I’m not suggesting that Colin Craig is about to come out as a transgender homosexual philanderer, but it’s no surprise that a person who campaigned on the moral highground should now find himself caught in a rising tide of dirty swamp water.

The election result in Northland and events surrounding it have confirmed that politics up here is largely a rich man’s play thing. Despite this being the poorest electorate in the country, voters’ efforts are so divided that many wonder if change can ever come.

That National could have entrusted the North to Sabin showed the arrogance of a complacent government. Putting up a blundering Osbourne as his replacement showed just how out of touch National is. With the castle left guarded by a fool, it should have known that a wily warhorse like Peters would overrun their previous stronghold.